Ship of Fools
by everyl1ttleth1ng
Summary: What surprises Fitz the most (well, second-most after the Will revelation) is how much of an idiot he feels.


What surprises Fitz the most (well, second-most after the Will revelation) is how much of an idiot he feels. If anything, the last six months have been ample evidence of him having just as much genius as ever. He's taken on forces he'd never dreamed of facing, he's worked out the intricacies of an ancient portal, gotten himself to another planet, risked everything to save the woman he loves and triumphed like some kind of comic book hero.

The portal has been destroyed, which is supposed to allay Jemma's fears, but in all of his time with it, around it, in it, through it and back again, he's worked it out, knows how to re-create its effect. He was planning to keep that data well-hidden, something to turn over in his mind on a rainy day.

He could never have expected that rain so soon. And what a downpour it's turning out to be.

Though he half loves this stranger for saving Jemma's life, for keeping her safe, suddenly just the knowledge of his existence makes Fitz feel so very foolish.

He's never held hands with a woman before, certainly not romantically, and that's what he thinks he's been doing. To him it has seemed so tender.

He's never asked a woman out to dinner before, much less actually got her there, and to him, though that night is a hard memory, underneath all of it, he still thinks it thrummed with potential.

And, _oh god_ , that toast. His head falls involuntarily into his hands every time he so much as thinks about it. Thank goodness she'd started crying and stopped him from letting all of that unwelcome muck fly out into the open. It's hard enough with things unsaid. What if she'd let him just blurt it all out? But it isn't really like he can hold it in anyway. He knows that everything he feels leaks out of him every time she catches him looking at her.

He doesn't really want to be in the lab. Jemma is always there, poring over their combined data, working with the determination with which he'd worked to bring her home. He helps as often and for as long he can stand it, but sometimes he just has to get away. It doesn't help that Bobbi looks at him now with more naked concern than she ever had when Simmons was gone and she knew full well he was a man on the edge.

What he wants is to have a beer (or several) with Hunter, but he doesn't even know where he is. Apparently he and May have gone out after Ward. Fitz can't even summon up the energy to hate Ward the way he used to. He vaguely wonders if that's a bad sign.

If a beer with Hunter were an option, he could sit back and let his friend's comforting banter wash over him. Geez, that guy can talk. Fitz loves him for it. And now he finds himself yearning for Hunter's chatter so he can tune into something other than the overwhelming sense of his own stupidity.

Perhaps Hunter would have been quiet for just a moment, perhaps he would have sought Fitz's gaze and said something eloquent like, "Alright, mate?" Fitz wouldn't have had anything particular to say. But he just might have let himself have a little cry. Lance and Fitz had drunk beer and cried on each other's shoulder times without number while Bobbi was touch-and-go and Jemma was gone without a trace.

Just thinking about it is enough to summon the hot tears, pricking at the back of his eyes, threatening to spill out and drown him. He ducks out of the lab and jogs to his bunk. Drunken crying with his mate is one thing. Sober crying in front of his colleagues is quite another. Especially when one of those colleagues is the one over whom he weeps.

He flops onto his bed as the sobs hit. He isn't angry at her. Not even a little bit. He just feels unbearably sad. He'd let himself believe that she was as ecstatic about their reunion as he was, and it isn't even that he doubts her sincerity. It's just that while his whole heart is hers, along with every other bit of him that the blood-pumping tyrant powers, he doesn't know any more if he might be allowed to have anything in return.

She doesn't owe him a thing. He never for a moment wants her to think that. But he _does_ want her to want him. Not out of pity, not out of familiarity, not in consolation. He's let himself believe, and that belief has infused every particle of him, that they might finally be together. That he'll offer himself to her again and this time she'll accept him, excitedly, like he's a gift she's always wanted. And that, wondrously, of her own happy accord, she'll offer herself to him too, and he'll whoop with joy and kiss her all over her face and sing her songs and make her something extravagant late at night in the lab and appoint himself her tea angel and cook her pancakes for breakfast every day and be delighted when those pancakes actually fatten her up.

But it isn't going to go that way and now Fitz lives with a constant sensation of deflating, the puff rushing out of him like a gaudy hot-air balloon that someone poked a hole into, sinking slowly back to earth. He pulls his pillow into a hard lump under his head and lets his tears soak into it.

"Fitz?"

His rush to swipe at his wet face is a wasted effort and Jemma is burrowing into his arms, pressing her lips against his neck, burying her fingers in his hair.

It's too much, too wonderful, too confusing, too powerful and he has no idea whether to fight or surrender. He wants so much to take whatever she'll give but he doesn't know if he can protect himself from shattering if she'll later take it all away.

"Don't, Jemma," he whispers, hands flat on the mattress, pushing himself away from her, sitting with his back pressed up against the wall. When he finds her eyes they're pools of hurt.

"You were all I wanted for so long, Fitz," she whispers. "Will kept me alive in the end but I only lived long enough for him to find me because of you."

"Jemma," he pleads, fresh tears on his cheeks. "I don't even know what to do with that information."

Now she's crying too and that makes him infinitely sadder.

"All I have," she whispers, clutching at neckline of her shirt, "is pain. And all I want is you."

"No," Fitz shakes his head sadly. "You can't say I'm all you want, Jemma. We both know that isn't true."

"I want it to be true!" she shouts, pushing off the bed and getting to her feet. "Can't that be enough?"

"No," Fitz has to insist, standing his ground though he knows that he's hurting her. "Because it won't be enough for me when you walk away again. Your good intentions, Jemma, they're enough to break me."

She gasps and for a moment he thinks he's been over-dramatic. He replays the words in his head and is struck by their rightness.

"I can't be the one you come to," he says quietly. "Not here, anyway. I don't think I can be alone with you."

Jemma's face is equal parts exasperation and desperation. "Fitz," she pleads.

"You should go." He gets to his feet. "We should both go. Let's get back to the lab, get back to work."

Her expression softens. "Y-you'll keep working with me?"

"Of course," Fitz assures her. "I never meant you to doubt it, Jemma."

As he follows her, slump-shouldered, back to the lab, Fitz wonders again if he's being a fool. Surely the time has come at last to make a clean break, to take that job at Stark Industries, to travel the world and carve himself a new identity where his name has a consistent single syllable and his heart has a chance to heal.

But she turns and gives him a watery smile and all of the wilted hope inside him gets a sudden draught of sustenance. Despite all appearances, he does believe that they are somehow endgame and this Will is just a piece of the puzzle.

They'll get him back and then they'll see…

* * *

 _Made myself cry thinking about this so I just had to write it. Love to hear what you think! This has been a lightning fic so I hope it's ok._

 _Also, I just wanna say, until I got on tumblr it never occurred to me to imagine the sort of passion with which a bunch of people could love two characters even independent of the actual show that gave those characters life! I'm not really in that category. I love me some FitzSimmons (as most of my body of work would attest) but I love me a good plot twist too and I'm eeeking and squawking my way through each episode and cheering on the writers for the cool ideas they have!_

 _That said, I had to work out some pain. And apologies for the silly last few sentences. It suddenly became all about me!_

 _I have no plausible Will theories or predictions but I'm excited to see where it all goes!_ _Please let me know if you like this one!_


End file.
